by Rick Wood
“I thought it was going to be a quick sweep, General.”
“It is. But if you aren’t protected in the initial attack–”
“Then you’ll just have to make sure I am.”
Hayes shrugged.
“Okay. We can do it. I’ll put someone on you, make sure you’re safe. You’re the boss.”
“Yes, I am.”
Eugene sighed. Looked at his whiskey. Twirled his glass, watched the waves crash against the rim.
“I just don’t want to work for all this,” Eugene said, “and not be there to see it all come together.”
“I understand.”
“It’s been such a bother, such a difficulty to make this all happen. Now it’s going to happen, we’re going to see it, actually see what we intended to create – I don’t want to be sat at home waiting to hear all about it. I want to be there, to witness it. Once it happens, the AGA won’t stand a chance anyway.”
“They are pathetic. Depleted numbers. It’s all precautionary.”
Eugene put his hand on Hayes’ shoulder.
“I place my trust in you, good sir.”
“I won’t let you down.”
Eugene nodded.
No. He wouldn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lucy Sanders was dead.
That’s all there was to it.
That pathetic morsel no longer meant anything to Desert. She wasn’t some bitch to the office boss, some slut to the men who said a nice few words to get the most insecure woman in the bar into bed. Lucy Sanders had been more than the slave to the grind; she’d been the obedient, conforming, vagabond to the grind.
Now, she was the grind. She was the temptress who lured others into the fight against the life she once was.
Emotions didn’t matter. They were there to be controlled, not unleashed. Everything she’d learnt up until now told her that she had to be ruthless, had to quell the useless instincts she’d had before.
Before the infection, she’d been a person who wore the nice clothes to work, did as she was told, waited and waited for that pay check to arrive at the end of the month and relished the week that it would last.
Now there was no pay check. There was survival.
And she was good at it.
After travelling for hours with no break, she appreciated Gus’s suggestion to stop – but they’d stopped for too long now. They needed to get going. So, she readied herself. Prepared herself to continue.
The lake they’d found to rest beside flowed with steady waves, calmly thrashing its water against the bank. She dipped her bottle in, scooped up some water, lifted that bottle to her lips and relished the release from dehydration.
Funny, Lucy Sanders had never thought about how grateful she was for water. For the necessities of life she took for granted. For the pathetic existence that ruled her monotonous activities.
Desert was grateful. Every damn day.
Right. Enough rest. Desert concluded it was time to go, and approached Gus to voice this; but, as she approached, she couldn’t help but watch.
Gus was sat next to Sadie who, despite her obvious limits in vocabulary, was listening intently to everything he said.
“The infected,” Gus said, “the ones with the pale faces – can you tell the difference between them and us?”
Sadie eagerly nodded.
“So, the infected – what are they like?”
“Uh…” She considered this. “Fast. Bad. Uh… Dead.”
“How can you tell they are dead?”
“Uh…” She indicated her face, then pulled a disgusting face.
Desert couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Yes – they have disgusting faces,” Gus confirmed, also smiling to himself. “And people who aren’t infected – what do they look like?”
“Uh…” She thought intently. “Face… Nice. Alive.”
“Yes, exactly. Now, here is the question – do we kill the infected” – he lifted his left hand out – “or do we kill the living?” He lifted his right hand out.
Sadie thought about this, then slapped Gus’s left hand.
“Yes, excellent!”
Sadie smiled proudly to herself.
Gus held out his right hand, the one indicating the living.
“And the living – do we ever kill them?”
“Uh…”
“Think about it, Sadie. Is there ever a time we kill them?”
“Uh… Yeah?”
“Yeah. There is. Is it when you feel like it? Is it when you want them to go away?”
Sadie thought about this, then shook her head.
“Or – is it when you are in danger? When they are threatening your life, or one of your friend’s lives?”
“Uh… Yeah.”
“Excellent,” Gus declared. “Good, Sadie. Well done.”
Sadie beamed at Gus; she couldn’t look prouder.
“Hey, Gus,” Desert interrupted.
“What’s up?”
“Reckon it’s time to go?”
Gus shrugged. “Good a time as any.”
They set off, walking back through the endless forest that consumed their surroundings. Desert was pretty sure they were in the middle of the Lake District – but she hadn’t come across any signs, or any of the wooden posts that would have indicated a walking route one may have taken on a casual Saturday afternoon before the outbreak.
It didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like they needed to know the name of the forest. They just needed to go in the correct direction. Before the government’s attack had left the AGA in scarce numbers, they’d had instructions on how to get there; head south east for forty to fifty miles. Expect radio transmission as you get closer.
But what if this place was no longer there? What if they didn’t receive any transmission? What if–
No.
Lucy Sanders lived her life with what ifs.
Desert didn’t.
Whizzo went to trip. Donny caught him, saving the young lad from an embarrassing slip into the water. An instinctive gesture of good will.
These were good people.
Gus’s fatherly instinct toward Sadie, her undying loyalty, Donny’s eagerness to avoid Whizzo getting hurt.
This all came from how much they cared about each other. From the strong hold their friendship had.
Strange, really. How such a thing can occur once the world had pretty much ended.
Maybe emotions weren’t such a bad thing after all.
Chapter Thirty
He remembered.
Donny remembered.
He remembered who Gus was. Gus was the ex-soldier who abused him the whole way to London, who insinuated he was useless, who belittled him for no reason other than for being a no-good loser, hellbent on drinking himself to death over the demise of his family.
But there was something else.
More to Gus.
There were more memories. They just felt… concealed. Like they were on a shelf too high for him to reach, or were floating away from him on the waves of the shore and no matter how much he stretched his arm out, he couldn’t reach them.
But there were feelings.
Again, feelings he didn’t have. Or didn’t recognise.
No, he had them, he was sure of it. He just didn’t realise what they were.
Gus’s leg. How did he end up with one leg? What happened? It seemed important, somehow. Like it was something Donny should know. Yet, the more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t recall.
Donny had something to do with that leg being lost.
He knew he didn’t do it. He knew that for sure. It didn’t feel right. Gus did it to himself; that’s what his instinct told him. That’s what he was sure of. But why, and how? Such discoveries eluded him.
Still, Gus seemed happier with this new leg than he did with his old. He was gazing at it like a child with a new toy, marvelling at its innovation. Other people asked how he was getting on, his smile shone at them, saying
stuff like, “I can’t believe it,” and “I’m so grateful,” and “It’s amazing.”
Donny hung back. He felt a strange sense of responsibility to avoid being part of any social interaction, to avoid engaging in conversation about the AGA.
He glanced over his shoulder. All he saw was trees, but in his mind, he could still see the concealment of the AGA’s barren underground headquarters. There was something about their expedition to find the rest of the AGA he knew. Something he was aware of, yet not aware of. Something he was sure of but had no way of knowing.
There is no AGA.
That was it. They didn’t exist. He knew this – somehow, he absolutely knew their journey to the rest of the AGA was futile.
Again, he didn’t know how he knew it. But, same as he knew he had ten fingers and ten toes, same as he knew his name was Donny, and same as he knew that he had to follow them and not let them out of his sight, he knew – there was no AGA.
The people they were looking for.
Their friends.
Useless.
Donny considered telling them. Rushing up to Desert and letting her know that this trip was pointless. That this search would lead nowhere.
But that wasn’t what he was supposed to do.
He shook his head, attempting to snap himself out of it, out of this funk, out of this deep despondency that perplexed his mind.
Why was he so damn miserable?
He thought as far back as he could. He remembered Gus being an arsehole. As usual. A regular arsehole.
He remembered Sadie. She was like a human animal. But what else? What had Sadie done? Why did he know her? How did he know her?
Then his memory was made up of a long period of nothing. Sadie, Gus, then nothing. After this nothing was the compound. A room. A blank room. He met a woman. Doctor Emma Saul.
Then he was leaving. Sadie was dragging him out of a room, taking him to find Gus. He was putting his arm around Gus, helping him hobble out, and the infected were parting, moving out the way for him.
Why did they do that?
Oh, wait.
He knew the answer to that.
Then they emerged. He followed Gus. Did as he was told. Did it as competently as he could. Because that was the plan.
What plan?
The plan.
Oh yes.
“You all right?”
A familiar voice to his side.
Gus. He’d hung back, let everyone else go ahead, to talk to Donny.
Donny didn’t know what to say to him. He didn’t know what to say to anyone. Still, his mind remained an untouched canvas. An impenetrable fort. No cannon could break down his stone walls, and no knife was sharp enough to penetrate what was underneath.
“Donny, man, I’m talking to you,” Gus said.
Donny knew he had to say something.
“Yes?” he tried.
“I asked you if you were all right.”
“Oh. Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You know, you’re kind of freaking us all out at the moment. The way you are. It’s strange.”
Strange.
Donny was strange.
What was strange?
Was strange being a one-legged man with a feral best friend and a quick-tempered disposition?
“Donny,” Gus prompted.
“I’m fine,” Donny responded. “Fine. Honestly.”
“You’re not,” Gus insisted. “I can see you’ve changed. I have no idea what they did to you in the compound, but I bet it was tough.”
Donny nodded. He didn’t remember.
“They did shit to me too, mate. They tortured Sadie. But, by the look of it, they may have got you the worst.”
Donny wished he could be left alone.
“So what did they do?” Gus continued. “I know it’s tough, but I really want you to talk about it.”
“I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that, but you ain’t. Donny, you are an irritating guy, but not this kind of irritating. I mean, you’re full of life, you’re joking all the time, it takes loads to get you to shut up. And now it takes loads to drag out a few syllables. I’ll give you time if you need time, but, still, you’ve got to give me something.”
Donny had no idea what Gus was talking about.
Nothing happened. He remembered nothing, so nothing happened. The time he spent in the compound was locked away somewhere in the confines of his memory, and he neither wished nor intended to access it. The information wasn’t required. Not for what he was doing. Not for this.
“Okay, fine,” Gus resolved, after a long enough silence. “Just know that when you do want to talk, I’m here.”
Gus sped up, walking back to the head of the group to talk to Desert.
Lucy Sanders.
Her name was Lucy Sanders, not Desert.
How did he know that?
Whizzo was a kid from the south west town of Tavistock. He grew up with two parents, had a pet cat. He had done his IT GCSE by the age of eleven. He can take apart and reassemble a computer in under a minute. His real name is Harry Segworth.
Prospero’s real name is Luke Worth. His codename, Prospero, was derived from a character in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, who was betrayed and left to die on an island, then goes on to free the spirit Ariel – very much like the way he met Desert after he’d been betrayed by Hayes, and helped to free her from the shackles of her persona as Lucy Harvey.
Prospero is proficiently trained as a sniper and is sufficient in hand-to-hand combat.
Donny knew all this and more. He knew everything about these people. Everything except for the reason that he knew this.
He just did. Because it was his job to know.
And it was his job to not tell anyone.
The Journal of Doctor Janine Stanton
Day 3
Transcript from webcam journal by Janine Stanton, third entry
I spoke to him.
I actually spoke to him.
Or, rather, he spoke to me.
Just after I gave him today’s dose. Just after my more concentrated solution was implanted into his arm:
* * *
40% blood of mutation
15% blood of infected
10% blood of subject
15% ketorolac
10% cortisone
10% water
* * *
You will notice that I have amended the figures rather drastically. Well, I never intended to be using such a quantity of mutation, or pumping in so much blood of infected and, I, er… reduced the other substances. The steroids, the water, they just – seemed to be diluting it too much.
I had no choice.
And, just after I put the needle in his arm, pressed down, that’s when he said it.
He didn’t look at me. He barely moved, in fact. It was a slow, monotonous tone, a few dry words, and he said – he, he went and said:
“Why are you doing this to me?”
(long pause)
I mean, how willing was he to agree to this? Does he even know what he’s doing?
The subject, I mean.
How willing was the subject?
I’m not supposed to call him he. He’s the subject. But, then again, isn’t that the kind of… alienation… the Nazis intended? Isn’t that how dictators, propaganda, all of it – isn’t that how they got to where they are? With, with this, blind, utterly blind reign of terror, with legions of followers following blindly, just, completely blind.
I knew there would have been some coercing, I get that. No one would give themselves up to do this without a huge death wish or something. But I never thought someone would be forced into doing this.
I mean – would I put it past Eugene Squire?
(long pause)
I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that question. Should I be honest? Is anyone going to see this but me? Surely, if Eugene is the kind of man I’m led to think he is, then this log will be checked and scrutinised and taken apart daily. Y
ou know my every action, don’t you? You’re everywhere.
I mean, it’s like you’re everywhere.
I don’t want to do this anymore.
I never wanted to in the first place. It wasn’t like I was given a choice. I thought when I created a successful mutation in the blood that would be it, that was my ticket out, I’d had success, I’d done it, great, send me home, just send me…
But no. There’s this. Injecting shit into some guy so brainwashed by whatever Doctor Emma bloody Saul did that I don’t even think he knows what day of the week it is!
Then again, do I?
I’ve been working here so long, I’ve lost track. Does anyone even keep track anymore? Like, what season it is, what time it is – does it matter? If the world out there has gone to – I mean, if the world isn’t what it was, if it is this big, infected pit, then why, why would anyone…
I don’t know what the end of the sentence was meant to be.
I’ve a pretty big hunch Eugene isn’t completely innocent in this whole infection outbreak thing.
(shakes her head)
But what exactly am I saying? What am I accusing him of?
I just – I don’t know. I, I really don’t know what to say. What to tell you. Tell… you, in the sense of this webcam, not the you in the sense that I actually have an audience, that would be… I don’t know… crazy. Crazy!
But the whole thing is crazy.
What I’m doing here is crazy.
I’m injecting – injecting infected blood, combined with blood of that girl, combined with shit I thought might make it more tolerable, and it’s just, it’s doing nothing but aggravating him, I mean, he doesn’t react, but I can see it, I see it in the little twitches he does with his eye, like he’s trained not to react, so trained, so conditioned that he can’t, but he does – it hurts him.
Who even is this guy?
This… Donny Jevon.
Sorry.
The
subject.
No. I won’t call him that. That makes it seem like he’s not a human being; he is, he is a human being.
At least…